


Rematch

by bookwyrmling



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Art Studio Shenanigans, Gen, Skype, beer pong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 08:04:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14131737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling/pseuds/bookwyrmling
Summary: The request pinged on her phone when Lardo was looking between her bank account and her Amazon shopping cart. Neither page was doing what she wanted it to do at the moment—the numbers on her Amazon cart continued to be high while the ones in her bank app refused to budge above coffee for the week—so she opened the Insta DM from realkvp90.Rematch? it read and Lardo furrowed her brows at it in confusion.





	Rematch

**Author's Note:**

> So way behind schedule because what are deadlines, but this was written for Lardo Week's Unlikely Friends prompt.
> 
> Characters belong to Ngozi Ukazu. If you haven't read Check Please yet, what are you even doing here?

The request pinged on her phone when Lardo was looking between her bank account and her Amazon shopping cart. Neither page was doing what she wanted it to do at the moment—the numbers on her Amazon cart continued to be high while the ones in her bank app refused to budge above coffee for the week—so she opened the Insta DM from realkvp90.

_ Rematch?  _ it read and Lardo furrowed her brows at it in confusion until a link followed to one of her own posts.

When she clicked on it, she laughed, the sound loud and intrusive in the silence of the studio she was using. She glanced around embarrassed, her eyes landing on the shut door before she shook herself and went back to the picture of Kent Parson holding up a sign reading _ She beat me @ _ before the screen cut it off. Lardo had beaten him at pong and flip cup that night, though the flip cup had been a close thing despite the fact that she was good enough no one else on the opposing team wanted to go up directly against her. They had both ended up as the anchors, and Lardo was pretty sure if they had played 1 on 1 a few rounds, it would’ve been a close tie.

The pong, on the other hand? The pong had been abominable. She’d belched in his face, in the end, out of respect for his flip cup and his hockey and his good attitude the whole time he was losing, but definitely not out of respect for his pong game.

_ Kinda hard when you’re in another timezone,  _ She wrote back instead.

Kent Parson responded with his skype address.

He was grinning at her when the call connected before he scanned his phone over a table set up for a round of pong.

“You mean now?” Lardo asked.

“No time like the present, right?” Kent replied, “Besides, I’ve been practicing.”

“Three months?” Lardo snorted. “Try three years with the skills you showed me last time.” She shook her head. “And that doesn’t even change the fact that you’re in Vegas and I’m not.”

“So set up a table there,” Kent argued, “We’ll play at a distance. Like how those chess nerds do.”

“Wait, what? Chess?”

“Oh, yeah, Macker loves chess,” Kent said, “He plays games with people at a distance. They both just set their own boards up and play that way. They move their own pieces and the other person’s pieces according to the moves they tell them. I figured why not give it a try with beer pong?”

“Isn’t there, like, online chess?” Lardo asked, “Pretty sure my computer has a game for it.”

Kent laughed. “That’s Macker for ya. Says it’s not the same as the real thing. It’s why he refuses to get a kindle. Carries books everywhere.”

“Sounds like something a nerd would say.”

Kent’s smile was loose and easy as he asked, “Wanna be a nerd, then?”

Lardo smirked.

“I’m not exactly in a pong-friendly spot,” she finally said after rolling her eyes.

“Oh, yeah? In the library or something?” Kent’s eyes glinted, devious—like getting her in trouble in the library would be the highlight of his day. Or maybe it was more the misuse of library space. She didn’t know him enough to be sure either way, though going by her own hockey boys the latter seemed as safe a bet as the former.

Lardo rolled her eyes and turned her camera around to show off the studio, with space for freestanding and table work.

“I see plenty of room on that table for a pong set-up,” Kent said. Lardo couldn’t see his face, but she could picture his lopsided grin from the picture Ransom and Holster had bragged about and posted on their wall despite Bitty’s odd distaste of it.

“I’m in an art studio,” Lardo said loudly, turning the camera and screen back around to her face.

“An empty one,” Kent pointed out, “C’mon, I leave on a roadie after the game tonight and I’m looking for something fun to pass the rest of the morning. Rack your cups.”

“I don’t have beer,” Lardo said, instead, even as her eyes slipped to one of the supply cupboards where they kept solo cups on hand for, well, a lot of different reasons—surprisingly, only half of which were the consumption of beverages.

Kent only shrugged, holding up a bottle of Pellegrino. “It’s morning for me. I’m just using water.”

Of course he was. And it wasn’t like Lardo didn’t practice with water, either. The beer was more for the party than it was for the game, itself. No one got drunk off two bottles unless they were Chowder or Nursey. Lardo bit her lip and looked over to the covered easel she was supposed to be working on and the bag of materials for her found object piece. “I’m busy with a project?”

One of Kent’s eyebrows quirked up. “You don’t really sound so sure,” he said. Lardo watched his shoulders slump as he sighed and set the bottle down. He ran his hands through his hair, ruffling it into a few loose curls. “Look, if you don’t want to, that’s fine. Just sounded like a fun way to pass the time.”

Lardo looked over at the table. “I shouldn’t do it,” she said and Kent nodded his acceptance. “I  _ should _ be working on the pieces for my junior art show,” she continued with a  huff, tugging at her own hair. It was getting long, less her maintained chop and more a fine mess she either needed to volumize daily until it grew out a bit more or cut back again. Haircuts cost money, though, even if they were from your still life workshopping neighbor. “Instead, I’m staring at my bank account and trying to decide if I need sequins or coffee more this week.” Haircuts weren’t happening even if Lardo had the time for one.

Kent paused for a moment before nodding to himself and leaning into whatever it was he was skyping through—a laptop? A tablet or phone he’d propped up?—and asked, “You have Venmo?”

Lardo eyed him with suspicion but gave a slow nod of assent.

“Beat me and I’ll buy you both.” 

Lardo snorted at the obvious challenge. “You might as well just send me the money.”

“Prove it and I will,” Kent dared, leaning in even closer. Lardo could almost swear he was flirting with her.

Two could play at that game, however, so she leaned close, as well. “You’re on.”

Their toothy grins were almost a direct match and they stared each other down for several seconds before calling it a draw and leaning back into their own virtual space.

“Cool,” Kent said and nodded, “And if I win, you post a picture holding a sign saying so.”

“It’s not gonna happen,” Lardo pointed out.

“Prove it,” Kent argued.

Lardo pursed her lips to keep from laughing. “You’re on,” she finally agreed after a moment’s thought, setting the phone down to grab cups.

The problem was that the table was not a ping pong table. It was a bit skinnier and a bit longer. Lardo tried to set up the cups as best she could, grabbing a yardstick when the dimensions messed with her ability to eyeball it a bit too much, and then poured water in her own for drinking before adding some tap water to the other cups to weigh them down.

“Oh, shit, I just realized,” Kent shouted in disbelief.

“You can’t back out that easy,” Lardo called as she finished pouring the water into the cups.

“No, no, what about the ball?”

“Do you not have a ball?” Lardo asked as she looked over to the screen. Her phone’s a bit small, so she can’t see it too clearly from this distance.

“No, I do,” Kent replied, “But what about you?”

Lardo grinned and walked off-screen to dig through her bag before popping back in front of the camera, ping pong ball held up between her thumb and index finger.

“Do you just, like, walk around ready for random beer pong challengers?”

“No,” Lardo said with a laugh before flicking the ball up and catching it on the back of her hand. “I like to fiddle with them when I’m bored. I don’t like sitting still.” She pulled her hand out from underneath the ball and flipped it over to catch it before it fell. She raised an eyebrow at Kent. “If you need to back out...”

“No, no, no,” Kent said with a shake of his head, “I’ve definitely got this.”

Lardo smothered another snort before propping her phone up nearby. “Winner goes first,” she declared, bounced the ball against the table to warm her hand and wrist up, then shot.

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to thank Alice and Gizelle on the ParsePosi Posse Discord for the last minute beta. Alice, your nitpicking saved this piece and turned it into something readable from the trash pile it was. THANK YOU SO MUCH.
> 
> Find me on tumblr (rushingsnowy) or pillowfort (bookwyrmling) to say hi or chat!


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